Review roundup: Fire Phone is good for Amazon, but doesn't stack up to competitors
As e-commerce behemoth Amazon gears up for the release of its first-ever smartphone on Friday, technology journalists have begun to weigh in with their thoughts on the device -- and the returns don't look good for Jeff Bezos's brainchild.
The highly-touted Firefly image and audio recognition functionality works well, he says, but currently serves little purpose other than directing users to Amazon's storefront.
Manjoo also took aim at the hardware itself, saying that it "looks more like a minimalist prototype than a finished product." He did laud Amazon's choice to deliver 32 gigabytes of internal storage for the same price as competitors' 16-gigabyte offerings, however.
Most of Manjoo's praise was reserved for Amazon's Fire OS, which also powers the Kindle Fire line of tablets. The app carousel and Mayday help features alone might make the Fire Phone a favorite of non-techies, he says, if they can get past the "gimmicks" and "3-D heroics."
Amazon is likely to keep the Fire Phone as an AT&T exclusive for a significant period of time, Mossberg says, which he believes will turn off the large portion of consumers who dislike the carrier no matter their opinion on the device. He also found AT&T's network data speed lacking, a potentially limiting factor for a handset that depends on the cloud for so much of its functionality.
In addition, widely-implemented features including Bluetooth Low Energy support and biometrics -- similar to Apple's celebrated Touch ID sensor -- from other devices are nowhere to be found. Mossberg also misses the app selection of iOS and Android, specifically citing the lack of an official YouTube app for Fire OS as an example of that key difference.
In order "to top Apple and Samsung," Mossberg concludes, "Amazon needs to do better."
The Fire Phone's camera, Fowler says, is subpar compared to the iPhone 5s. Low-light shots "lacked the detail and natural color I could pick up with the iPhone."
Battery life was also disappointing, with Fowler reporting a drained unit after only "three-quarters of a day's" use. The Fire Phone lasted 25% less time on battery than an iPhone in Fowler's test and 16% less than a Samsung unit with a larger display.
Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica called Firefly "genuinely cool," but agreed with most others that Dynamic Perspective is "neat technology with few practical uses." The lack of compatibility with the iTunes or Google Play ecosystem is a killer, he feels.
David Pierce of The Verge enjoyed the Fire Phone's camera and battery, but panned the "confusing, complex interface."
Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times
Calling the Fire Phone a "solid device beneath a layer of whiz-bang frippery," Manjoo chides Amazon spending too much time on fanciful features like the head-tracking Dynamic Perspective system, which he argues "rarely makes for a substantive improvement" in daily usage. He goes so far as to call one of Dynamic Perspective's headline use cases -- Auto Scroll, which scrolls the content of the display based on the angle at which the user holds the phone -- "downright annoying," saying that the "best thing about Auto Scroll is that you can turn it off."The highly-touted Firefly image and audio recognition functionality works well, he says, but currently serves little purpose other than directing users to Amazon's storefront.
Manjoo also took aim at the hardware itself, saying that it "looks more like a minimalist prototype than a finished product." He did laud Amazon's choice to deliver 32 gigabytes of internal storage for the same price as competitors' 16-gigabyte offerings, however.
Most of Manjoo's praise was reserved for Amazon's Fire OS, which also powers the Kindle Fire line of tablets. The app carousel and Mayday help features alone might make the Fire Phone a favorite of non-techies, he says, if they can get past the "gimmicks" and "3-D heroics."
Walt Mossberg of Re/Code
The Fire Phone is "no more than an interesting first step" toward altering the iPhone-defined touch interaction paradigm, Mossberg writes. While echoing others' sentiments -- calling the handset's standout features "less useful than I expected, and sometimes outright frustrating" -- his main points of contention are the Fire Phone's exclusivity to wireless provider AT&T and a lack of features offered by competitors.Amazon is likely to keep the Fire Phone as an AT&T exclusive for a significant period of time, Mossberg says, which he believes will turn off the large portion of consumers who dislike the carrier no matter their opinion on the device. He also found AT&T's network data speed lacking, a potentially limiting factor for a handset that depends on the cloud for so much of its functionality.
In addition, widely-implemented features including Bluetooth Low Energy support and biometrics -- similar to Apple's celebrated Touch ID sensor -- from other devices are nowhere to be found. Mossberg also misses the app selection of iOS and Android, specifically citing the lack of an official YouTube app for Fire OS as an example of that key difference.
In order "to top Apple and Samsung," Mossberg concludes, "Amazon needs to do better."
Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal
Amazon's entry is "full of gimmicks" and "lacking basics," Fowler wrote, comparing the device to "the grown-up equivalent of a 9-year-old riding a bike with his hands in the air." While others focused mainly on the Fire Phone's software, Fowler primarily took its hardware to task.The Fire Phone's camera, Fowler says, is subpar compared to the iPhone 5s. Low-light shots "lacked the detail and natural color I could pick up with the iPhone."
Battery life was also disappointing, with Fowler reporting a drained unit after only "three-quarters of a day's" use. The Fire Phone lasted 25% less time on battery than an iPhone in Fowler's test and 16% less than a Samsung unit with a larger display.
Others
Ed Baig of USA Today liked the Fire Phone in general, saying it has a "lovely screen," and praised Amazon's inclusion of unlimited cloud hosting for photos. The learning curve is steep, however, and he wished for additional carrier support.Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica called Firefly "genuinely cool," but agreed with most others that Dynamic Perspective is "neat technology with few practical uses." The lack of compatibility with the iTunes or Google Play ecosystem is a killer, he feels.
David Pierce of The Verge enjoyed the Fire Phone's camera and battery, but panned the "confusing, complex interface."
Comments
Amazon did the reverse of that, and it shows. Big time.
Why does AI editorialize on other people's editorials? Do you consider AI reader's too stupid to comprehend quotes from an outside review without AI's interpretation and intervention? Why not put pertinent quotes in context and provide actual links to the article? Isn't AI embarrassed to craft such an obvious hit piece? I don't know if the Fire phone is good or not but AI's hit piece certainly isn't credible.
I personally enjoy this sort of summary. It keeps me from needing to read 18 different reviews, and instead I can read one piece in a few minutes.
DOA.
Another one for the dust-heap...
Right after we give it it's "iPhone Killer" stamp...
Why does AI editorialize on other people's editorials? Do you consider AI reader's too stupid to comprehend quotes from an outside review without AI's interpretation and intervention? Why not put pertinent quotes in context and provide actual links to the article? Isn't AI embarrassed to craft such an obvious hit piece? I don't know if the Fire phone is good or not but AI's hit piece certainly isn't credible.
Where is the editorializing? Each of them has a link to the source article, as far as I can see, and from a casual skimming of the others it seems to be a simple summary.
What a crap phone! And it is rightfully getting bad reviews in most places that I've seen.
Who the hell wants a phone designed to generate sales of Amazon's goods? Amazon should be paying people to use it, and not the other way around.
It's also Android, which is complete crap, and even worse, it's a skinned version of Android, which is even more crap.
And what's up with all of those gimmicky cameras that serve no useful purpose?
This phone will not sell well and only a few morons will buy it.
Right after we give it it's "iPhone Killer" stamp...
Agreed. I am waiting for the stories to be written about how the Fire phone is going to force Apple back to the drawing board to rethink the iPhone. /s
[...] "solid device beneath a layer of whiz-bang frippery" [...]
[...] "confusing, complex interface" [...]
Some features and details of Apple products really felt like semi-bad ideas that Steve Jobs loved and insisted on.
Brushed-aluminum skins on OS X, the infamous "hockey puck" iMac mouse, the dead-end skeuomorphism of old iOS, etc.
The company eventually got rid of all of those features and details, all for the better.
But Amazon had better clean up the GUI of the Fire Phone ASAP. The thing reeks of Bezos' pet project ideas.
Too gimmicky for a professional designer to have approved.
It says much about what a Great Leap Forward the iPhone was that so early in its evolution that competitors can do little to top it beyond gimmicks and larger screens.
I prefer to think that after 3 generations
Iphone
Iphone 4
Iphone 5s
the smartphone market is pretty much matured. There is a sweet spot that Apple has firmly entrenched as the Zeroth Tier. There are first tier variants primarily on size, and 2nd tier variants on function and price. If the functions aren't perfect, and align with human expectations, it's a tough row to hoe.
There will be no iPhone Killer... The thing that kills the iPhone will be something that supplants the AppStore and ITMS, sucking the life from the iPhone from behind the scenes.
Amazon is the likely candidate to make such a phone... and pretty much no one else (maybe microsoft.... maybe... Facebook - no. Google - no.)
But this is strike one. But given Amazon's contrarian management, I'm pretty sure they get 4 strikes and 5 outs before their inning is over
Amazon is a genius at what they do: Keeping people in their ecosystem/sales channel. But personally, I think the only way this phone would be competitive is if Amazon were to offer free data/service.
That would be a game changer, at least in the lower end of the market.
What else are they going to post?
Lester Victor Marks hasn't gotten around to writing his rave review of the Fire Phone yet.
In spite of its major faults, I think it will sell quite well just as the Kindle apparently has. And for the millions who do constantly buy from Amazon, they won't care that it points them there.
I'm actually a little surprised that Amazon used Android and didn't attempt to develop their own OS. Not that it would have been better.
I personally think this article nitpicks several reviews only to give you the bad information.
Who the hell wants a phone designed to generate sales of Amazon's goods?
The same type of fool who wants a phone designed to generate sales of Google advertising via continuous sifting of their personal data?
1. Firefly: its purpose is obvious, and exactly what Amazon needs. Google searching isn't guaranteed to return Amazon page results unless Amazon advertises for many keywords; this solves that, and tries to create a new user behavior that allows Amazon to short circuit product search behavior before it reaches the Web browser. From a business perspective, that's clever, and some of this capability is built in to Amazon's iOS app as well (product identification from camera picture).
2. The fake 3D eye tracking tech. Neat but not essential. This was the headliner, the hook, the carnival barker shouting "see the amazing three-breasted woman!" This feature was possibly intended to draw in the press and public to sit up and take notice of what is otherwise a ho-hum iPhone clone. It is probably as "essential" (read: non-essential) as 3D on the Nintendo 3DS or Kinect on the Xbox One.
I expect iteration will make the weaknesses in Amazon's first phone history in future releases, but if these are Amazon's best ideas, then well...good luck against everyone else making smartphones.
Both gimmicks are necessary to get noticed in the crowded field of "me too" iPhone clones, so it doesn't surprise me that they launched with these two main features.
But I thought Samsung battery life was great and iPhones were wall huggers? /s
Depending upon how the test was conducted, the battery life relationships between the Fire Phone and an iPhone and the Fire Phone and a Samsung might have little to do with the relationship between the Samsung and the iPhone, even though one might surmise from the test that there's only a 9% difference. But even that 9% difference, if that's accurate, could mean 97 minutes difference in an 18-hour day. That isn't a minor difference.
Apple needs to worry when all of their competitors figure out that it's all about ease of use and the UX.
At the rate they're going, Apple has nothing to worry about.